-- Excerpted from Love Lessons from Bad Breakups

It's one thing to be aware that you have negative romantic patterns you continually repeat; another entirely to actually stop those self-defeating behaviors. The good news: With will and work, change is possible. I picked the brains of a variety of leading therapists and experts to provide you with tips that prove an old dog can learn new tricks:

• Take a Cue from Gloria Gaynor. Whether or not there is a partner at your side, you will survive. Making it though a breakup without cracking up (at least not permanently) gives you an underbelly of strength. It may not yet be of industrial-strength size proportions but it's a start. To coin another lyric associated with a pop culture icon, once you emotionally own that you're gonna make it after all you no longer need a lover to make you feel whole. Ergo you no longer need to act in the old self-defeating ways.
  
  Dr. Alma Halbert Bond, PhD, author of I Married Dr. Jekyll and Woke Up Mrs. Hyde or What Happens to Love, puts it this way, "Many people are afraid to leave bad relationship because these negative love affairs psychologically thrust them back into early childhood. Consequently, they suffer all over again the terror of potentially being separated from a parent. Happily, finding the courage to leave an adult relationship sends the message that you are no longer a helpless child. Finding a partner then becomes the gravy, not the meal."
  
  Guess what? When you maintain such a healthy mindset, that is when love is likeliest to come knocking at your door.
  
  
• Have a One-Person Pity Party. Is grief from a failed relationship still holding you a prisoner? Suggests Dr. Kate, author of Dr. Kate's Love Secrets: Solving the Mysteries of the Love Cycle, "Give into the pain. Tell yourself, 'I will let myself grieve.' Then get out all the pictures of the two of you together and voice all those irrational thoughts like, 'No one will ever love me again.' Keep going until a little voice inside says, 'I don't care.' That's when you should take an aspirin and go to sleep."
  
  Dr. Kate adds, "The next day when you wake up you'll be in a rational state. Repeat this ritual as often as needed. Eventually you will achieve true closure."